The present disclosure generally relates to battery control systems and methods for vehicles, and particularly relates to a battery control system and method for a vehicle having an engine (e.g., an internal combustion engine).
New vehicle models continue to be responsive to consumer demands for an ever increasing number of electrically powered features and devices. These features and devices add an additional burden to the vehicle's battery and thus more consideration is needed for maintaining the battery. Examples of such features and devices are memories for preferred positions of electrically adjustable devices, such as seats and mirrors, and memories for other electrically powered devices, such as radios having tuning presets. Still other examples include clocks, user specified navigational information, etc. The foregoing examples of features and devices that tax the vehicle's battery are normally of the type that cannot be manually isolated from the vehicle's battery by the driver. In addition to these, electrical components and devices of a vehicle can be inadvertently left on when their use is no longer desired and/or the vehicle is unattended. Obviously, this can further stress a vehicle's battery.
When a battery is overly discharged (such as by powering too many devices and features and/or inadvertently powering a device for an extended period without being recharged), the battery may no longer hold sufficient charge such as may be necessary, for example, for starting an internal combustion engine of a vehicle, if so equipped. Moreover, as the battery ages, it may become more susceptible to such over discharging, as vehicle batteries are known to degrade over time and with repeated cycles of charging and discharging. Accordingly, it is desirable to maintain a healthy battery condition by monitoring the loads on the battery and selectively electrically connecting and/or disconnecting such loads under certain operating conditions.